Legal P2P opens for business
Well, it appears the time of free P2P sharing is coming to an end quickly. iMesh, one of the largest P2P (Peer-to-Peer) file-sharing services, is going “regulated”. They will start charging $6.95 a month for its file-sharing services, and while the old iMesh is still up, they will have to pay $4.1 million to record labels. We can expect more lawsuits to come for other unregulated file-sharing companies as they will all be pushed toward subscription services.
iMesh is the first of several “label approved” peer-to-peer networks hitting the market this year after long delays in their development. Mashboxx, created by former Grokster President Wayne Rosso, is also slated to go live this fall. Marco’s company may provide a real test of file swappers’ loyalty. In the last week alone, more than 1.5 million people have downloaded the old iMesh software, according to Download.com, a software aggregation site operated by News.com parent CNET Networks. Many of those people were seeking free access to music and video, which will be sharply curtailed under iMesh’s new life as a $6.95 per month music subscription plan similar in many ways to those offered by Yahoo or Napster. “If it’s trying to pull people over from the P2P world, it’s an important first step,” said GartnerG2 analyst Mike McGuire. “But meeting the basic bar that’s been set by legitimate services like iTunes or Rhapsody is going to be a real challenge.”
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